BurnieM

It was yesterday. <Bump> is used to pop a thread up as a new post to get people to read it. In this case on the morning of the fly in.

Bump

What does Trump think ?

Request When we are going off on a tangent, can we make it an aviation tangent ?

There are lots of state and federal laws referring to Australian Standards. Disappointing as you cannot read the standard unless you purchase a copy of it. No law should include anything that is not fully stated in the law and available to be read by everybody at no or minimal cost. PS 10 plus years ago I was part of a committee that contributed to a marine radio standard and I could not get a copy of the final standard unless I paid for it. Never again .

Australian Flying story (the back of my head made a showing)

Interesting. According to Rotax service instruction SI-916 i-001R5 / SI-915 i-001R6 / SI-912 i-001R11 / SI-912-016R16 / SI-914-019R16 dated 21 Feb 2024; You can use either AeroShell Sport Plus 4 or Rotax XPS Full Synthetic Aviation Engine oil in all Rotax 9xx series engines including 916 .

Not quite right. You can use AeroShell Sport Plus 4 oil in 912UL, 912ULS, 912IS, 914 or 915. The 916 is the engine that you need Rotax XPS oil for. Rotax said there were only 5? 916 in Australia at the moment but this number is expected to grow as many manufacturers are starting to use this engine.

These were not top model prices. For Sling 2; a 9 year old, 300 hour kit built Sling 2 with 912ULS was on display, with new paint and upgraded avionics, Garmin G3X efis, G5 backup mini efis, garmin GTR200 radio, g3x controlled autopilot. $185k plus gst. A new base model factory built Sling 2 similar avionics without autopilot $260k. 9-12 months delivery. You can take a Sling 2 up to 300K easy with 912IS, second G3X efis, autopilot servos and controller, ADS-B transponder in/out and ballistic parachute. Over 300k if you add an IFR naviator.

Price wise most (all?) factory built 2 seaters were $200-250k. For comparison a new 172 is over a mil but it does come with 2 nice EFISs.

Yeah, wind was light and variable. This morning I saw 2 departures from opposite ends of the same runway within 3 minutes of each other.

Basic 5 limits you to 2000kg. RPL further limits you to 1500. Good thing a Sling TSI is 950kg MTOW. Quite a lot of 4 seaters are under 2000kg.

2 people, 2 dogs, a decent amount of luggage and full tanks. Basic 5 med and RPL has changed the game. Only issue is the $450k price 😀

There was a post from Aero Sport the US Bushcat distributor; apparently they got told on 8 April when they were at Sun N Fun. GAP only got told a short while ago. Nobody seems too impressed. Apparently they also make parts for a variety of aero manufacturers and this part of their business (including Bushcat parts) will continue.

Parkes Sling porn;

At Parkes; John from Rotax saying they are going to try to price the new XPS oil similar to Shell. Also said he believed Shell were developing their own oil for the 916.

9 degrees and blue sky in beautiful downtown Parkes

I hear there is a guy in Perth. ...

Plus GAP so should be some Slings and Bushcat there.

Its not about reality, its about perception, like NGK sparkplugs. Unless its high volume and they can make a large amount of money out of it 🙂 You never hear this about cars, motorcycles,snowmobiles, jetskis or outboards. Lots more engine failures, some with fatalities and very rarely does anyone sue.

There are a lot of politics both ways ie the CASA delays to group G and then quickly bringing out basic 5 med makes you wonder. Its do-able but there are always Casa rumours. Would require hiring extra staff on a constrainted budget. Annual Casa rego/license fees rumour also floating around but unable to locate source.

Also $240/hr for Evektor Sportstar (912ULS with 6 pack) or $260/hr Evektor Harmony (912IS with EFIS) Those 3 prices are RAAus. He did mention it was time to review pricing so I am expecting maybe $20? bump shortly .

Disappointing, I was hoping for this year. Another reason to go RPL ?

Garmin Pilot displays weather via an internet connection. It only displays ADS-B equipped aircraft via BT to the aircraft ADS-B in (or SkyEcho etc). A more widespread takeup of ADS-B would be very useful. Anything proprietary (like EFB to EFB via internet) is subject to all software vendors getting it right all the time. My iPad mini is cellular but I do not have a phone sim in it. I have to set my phone to hotspot for it to connect to the internet. I believe a lot of iPads are setup this way (no sim) on all EFBs. (Using the cellular iPad version because it is the only one with a GPS in it)

I always think these total numbers for a particular segment are close to meaningless and wonder why they keep being quoted in government reports. Surely the numbers should quote pollutants per kilometre travelled NOT per segment or per aircraft or per litre consumed. I am still trying to convince a friend to use 95 in his car (lowest cost per kilometre travelled) and I keep getting cost per litre back.